These caves are the discovery site of a myriad of hominid and other animal fossils. They date back more than 4-million years, to the birth of humanity. “Mrs. Ples”, a 2.3-million-year-old Australopithecus skull, and “Little Foot”, an almost complete Australopithecus skeleton that is more than 3-million years old are the most important and most famous of these fossils discovered here .We learn a lot about the prehistory  of modern humans, called Homo sapiens.

The most recent discovery of “Australopithecus Sediba”, made in 2009, of two partial skeletons is between 1,78 and 1,95 million years old. The discovery was made by Professor Lee Rogers Burger and his 9 year old son, Matthew.